Earley & East Reading

Woodley

Caversham

Southcote

Headington

West Reading

Houghton Regis

Chinnor

REinspired is growing a network of independent projects open to all churches that share our values and want to use our methodology in developing lasting creative partnerships with their own local schools. Several projects across Reading and beyond are already part of the network. You can find out more about their stories here.

If you are already using our approach, which is explained in our book, ‘The Story of REinspired’, why not become part of the network and share your story?

Proposed new groups to join our family soon:

GuernseySouth Reading

More news coming soon …

Earley & East Reading

REinspired grew out of a Churches Together school project in Earley and East Reading (CTEER) in 2004, although the model had been working for about eight years before that. REinspired was set up to work with schools within the CTEER boundary that benefits from receiving volunteers from all its local churches.

We now have four teams of volunteers drawn from more than 20 local churches working with the primary and secondary schools:

Aldryngton

Alfred Sutton

Earley St Peter’s

Hawkedon

Hillside

Loddon

New Town

Radstock

Redlands

St John’s

Whiteknights

Maiden Erlegh

Bulmershe

If you are a Christian living or worshipping in Earley or East Reading, or if you have children at one of these schools, and would like to support us, please get in touch. You can email us at office@reinspired.org.uk or call us on 0118 966 3929.

Woodley

Woodley is a thriving town of approximately 26,000 residents sitting between Reading and Wokingham, separated from Earley by the A329 (M).

REinspired Woodley began in 2007 and is already reaching nearly 2000 primary school pupils in Woodley. They are benefiting from 35 different REinspired lessons, delivered to 60 classes.

REinspired Woodley is headed up by Linda Galpin from St James’ Church in Woodley where she is the Children and Families worker. Linda is a mother of four, a trained teacher and a keen storyteller.

Schools that Linda and her team are working with are:

Rivermead Primary

Southlake Primary

Woodley CofE

Beechwood Primary

Highwood Primary

Addington School

Linda is always keen to talk to anybody who is interested in being part of her team of volunteers. You can contact Linda by email at linda.galpin@reinspired.org.uk.

Caversham

Caversham lies to the north of Reading separated from the rest of the town by the River Thames. Churches Together in Caversham ran a pilot session in 2011 and on the excellent basis of the response from schools they began to expand the project across Caversham and Emmer Green.

Over the past 6 years, REInspired Caversham have developed partnerships with these schools:

Caversham Primary School

Thameside Primary School

The Hill Primary School

The Heights Primary School

Emmer Green Primary School

Micklands Primary School

Caversham Children’s Centre

Highdown Secondary School

In December 2015, REInspired Caversham appointed two new co-project managers, Helen Strong and Caroline Jennings, both active members at Caversham Baptist Church. The vision for the team is to deliver innovative, creative and engaging sessions to ‘every child, in every school and in every year.’

The Caversham REInspired project currently draws on volunteering members of the local Anglican, Methodist and Baptist churches to help deliver sessions. If you are a Christian living or worshipping in Caversham, or if you have children at a Caversham primary school, and would like to support us, please get in touch.

Southcote

Southcote lies just south of the A4 to the west of Reading town centre.

In September 2014 Mary Day took over the management of the Southcote REinspired work. Their work with Southcote Primary School includes a visit to St Matthew’s for each year group, from Foundation to Year 6. From September 2016 the team began delivering sessions to Foundation 2 in the school.

The school is growing and numbers of pupils for each year, Foundation to Year 3, are 90 with Years 4-6 remain at 60.

Mary has a lovely group of volunteers from several different church backgrounds and with the school expanding Mary would love to have your help.

If you are a Christian living or worshipping in Southcote, or if you have children at a Southcote primary school, and would like to support us, please get in touch. You can email us at southcote@reinspired.org.uk.

Headington

Headington lies on the eastern edge of Oxford. Having seen the benefits of REinspired while curate at Earley St Peter’s, Revd Maggie Thorne took REinspired with her when she became vicar of St Mary’s Headington in January 2012 and has since passed the baton to Nick Jackson.

Within six months, we were delivering training to a team drawn from two Anglican churches, a Methodist, a URC and a Baptist church. Then, in the year beginning September 2012, the team, with help from REinspired in Earley and East Reading, delivered lessons on ‘The lost sheep’ and ‘Inspirational Christians’ to St Andrew’s, Bayards Hill and Sandhills primary schools.

If you are a Christian living or worshipping in Headington, or if you have children at a Headington primary school or are an Oxford student looking for volunteering opportunities, and would like to support us, please get in touch. You can email us at headington@reinspired.org.uk.

West Reading

In late 2014 a small group of Anglicans and Methodists, representing four different churches in West Reading and Tilehurst area began meeting to discuss ways of forgeing our work with local schools. Some in the group had experience of REinspired and this led us to decide to set up an REinspired group on this side of the town centre.

With support from East Reading we recruited and trained volunteers. In 2015/2016, we ran two successful pilot sessions at Wilson School, one for year 2 and one for year 4. We are now in discussion with several other schools with a view to building on that success in the future.

We are keen to expand our team so if you are a Christian living or worshipping in West Reading or Tilehurst, or if you have children at a local school, and would like to know more, please get in touch. Similarly, if you work in a local school and think your school might be interested in REinspired’s methodology we would love to hear from you. You can email us at westreading@reinspired.org.uk.

Houghton Regis

Revd David Skinner was one of the founders of REinspired and has a passion for church engagement with schools. When he moved to take on the position of pastor of Houghton Regis Baptist Church, he wanted to take REinspired with him.

With help from members of Houghton Regis Baptist Church and other local churches, he has delivered several pilot sessions to a local middle school and hopes to expand this in the near future.

If you are a Christian living or worshipping in Houghton Regis, or if you have children at a local school, and would like to support us, please get in touch. You can email us at houghtonregis@reinspired.org.uk.

Chinnor

Chinnor is on the Oxford/Bucks borders at the foot of the Chiltern Hills and just a few miles from Thame, Princes Risborough, and the M40. It’s a large and ever-growing village in which there are three churches and two primary schools. Rev’d Maggie Thorne is Rector of the parish and was introduced to REinspired as a curate in Earley. It has so inspired her that she introduced the project to Headington in Oxford, where it has taken root … and now to Chinnor.

REinspired Chinnor is now active in St Andrew’s Primary School and Aston Rowant Primary School and is developing in Mill Lane Primary School.

The team of 15 regular volunteers is drawn from all three of the local churches.